Golden sitting cat keychain

A sitting cat keychain that hangs straight

The clasp is the part you handle every day. It swivels on its own axis, so the cat turns back to face outwards instead of staying twisted against a strap, and keys go onto the split ring rather than onto the clasp itself. At 6 cm it stays visible on a bag handle without being the heaviest thing on the ring. That makes it as much a bag charm as a keychain, on anything from the bag range, from totes to crossbody styles.

The back is a pierced shell, not a solid block

Turn the cat over and the rhinestones disappear. The reverse is bare metal cut through with small hearts, across the head and the body alike, so what you are holding is a shell rather than a solid casting. Those cut-outs do collect dust, and a cloth drawn over them lifts very little of it; a dry, soft brush reaches inside far better. Water is the one thing to keep away from it, since it sits under the stones and dulls the claws that hold them.

Colour by colour

Four colours do all the work on this charm, and each one keeps to a patch of its own instead of blending into the next.

The two white pieces that interrupt the sparkle

Two parts stay out of the glitter and give the eye somewhere to rest: the bow between the ears and the tail curling up the flank. Both are smooth opaque white enamel, with a faint iridescence on the bow that shifts with the angle. Against rose-toned metal that white reads soft rather than sharp, which is why the charm sits more easily against tan and brown leather than against hard black. Next to the other small animal charms in the key chain section, it is the warmth of the metal that marks it out.